If we zoom out to look at the entire universe, no. Looking at humanity, hell yes!We've replaced self-respect with a more useless "self-esteem" where you can just have blind faith in yourself with nothing to show for it. We treat our children like royality, making them grow up to be self aborbed consumer gluttons who even buy more than they can afford. ( the book connects narcissism to the recession)Our relationships with others have been affected. (a person diagnosed with narcissism as a disorder would be pretty much incapable of forming any relationships that aren't shallow)The motto everywhere has been "express yourself!" but people think that this is all it takes without putting in the work. They take the quickest route like changing up their style or their facebook page.The amount of people eveywhere who claim to be "different" is a result of narcissism. We block others out.. however this works like an immune system. our ability to tolerate other people who are different from us goes to shit.

The book "the narcissism epidemic" by Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Cambell provided a load of empirical evidence for what I have had a vibe about for a long time. This is generation N, folks. We are full of ourselves to our detriment. Everything from social networking, to the way parents call their kids "my little princess" to the status obsessed culture. Of course this isnt talking about Narcissism in the psychological disorder sense, but more so the prevalence of narcissistic traits, agree? disagree?

When you meet people who you perceive to be useless whom you would normally end up avoiding, but for one reason or another (curiosity, they are your friends' friend, etc.) end up getting the opportunity to talk to and accept this fate for a temporary time frame under the hope that this endeavor won't be entirely useless, you tend to think of methods to get rid of them or failing that, engaging them in topics that aren't inane.

In my experience, it's best to talk about whatever they want to talk about. By the very nature of your outlook on life, not meaning a yes/no about what's important, but about how you derive what's important, you'll change conversation. You don't have to try. If they have potential, they'll move farther along the path to knowledge. If not, nothing can change them, so just socialize and realize that they may not get your trip, but if you're nice to them, they'll grant your trip legitimacy among others.

Most of the people around me want to discuss sports, TV and sex/shopping/technology. That's alright by me. I know little about these topics, but hang in as best I can. These people aren't bad... they're just misguided, in the grips of a bad system. Every body has a brain and organs; our society has no brain. Not everyone needs to try to be brain cells. In fact, the stomach should be talking about food/shopping/sports and other good gustatory things. But if new brain cells arrive, they need to make connections to the organs somehow, and not by faux elitism and scorn toward the organs' favorite activities...

All IMHO, non-critcal

yep...one of the reasons i love listening is that at the bottom of the drivel it usually surfaces whether the person is nice or not. i would not want to be around someone who shares my views but is a self centered piece of shit.

If those people act like you need to rise to their level and know more about sports/shopping/sex/technology, then they're clearly assholes on top of being misguided.

Assuming the woman at the club is as good looking as someone that you would wife up, and has the right disease fighting chemicals/pheremones/whatever, is it really much different? Sure you might not have formed a close friendship with her or built some kind of financial/social relationship...or didn't even partake in the "romance" which is really just a prelude to sex. BUT the important thing is that in that moment you saw her, saw her great pair of fertile mammaries, and the dopamine, seratonin, etc, rushed to your brain, your member got all swollen and you knew you wanted to try as hard as possible to inseminate that. Your brain will convince you of ANYTHING in order to get you to do that.

The selfish gene.

Yeah. How convenient is for the replication of the selfish gene to acquire the alleles of the dumb girl with prominent mammaries? Actually you can get good doses of dopamine and serotonin in your brain for various reasons, Schubert produces serotonin in me whereas it bores the shit out to lots of people; objects alone do not produce serotonin in your human brain. Similarly, a good looking but smart girl provokes more neurological excitement in me than a gorgeous, brain dead fuck doll, and curiously, the former is better for the genetic descendants. Life is much more complex than that faux biological "realism".

Uh, sexual arousal is different from the stimulation you get from music. dopamine and seratotin are part of what happens when you're sexually attracted to someone, yes. You evaluate a good looking and smart woman as someone who would make a strong offspring (looks and intelligence wise), who would be able to provide a good home for the offspring, and as someone who would make a good friend. Forming groups is another evolutionary bias. So is the idea of entertainment, as we have a couple of more folds in our brains than chimpanzees on monkeybars. However her looks are STILL the most important. an ugly woman can either fight it out and see who will settle for her, or live the 9 cats life.

There is no difference between fucking a woman at the club and fucking your wife, and fucking for the sake of fucking and fucking to make a baby. Your dubious brain might rationalize it somehow, but your body has its own plan.

You're using the same verb and that makes it look ultimately as the same outcome for the action. What you fuck, as what you eat makes a difference, if you can't rationalize it you are less than a chimp, because human brain is part of the human body.

I can't see your point against celibacy, really. It only looks to me that your apparent support of promiscuity is very weak.

Assuming the woman at the club is as good looking as someone that you would wife up, and has the right disease fighting chemicals/pheremones/whatever, is it really much different? Sure you might not have formed a close friendship with her or built some kind of financial/social relationship...or didn't even partake in the "romance" which is really just a prelude to sex. BUT the important thing is that in that moment you saw her, saw her great pair of fertile mammaries, and the dopamine, seratonin, etc, rushed to your brain, your member got all swollen and you knew you wanted to try as hard as possible to inseminate that. Your brain will convince you of ANYTHING in order to get you to do that.

Well you are pleasing the female version of a penis to the thoughts of a man that you find sexually appealing. you can orgasm similarily from nipple twisting, caresses, kissing (when your saliva feels out his disease fighting abilities), etc. The important thing is that the man you are thinking about has to have appeal to you - which means he is someone who you think would make for a healthy offspring.

Well surely fucking with the intent of not having children is a rejection of this 'immortality desire'?

(Euronymous's views on anal sex applicable here?)

Other forms of sex besides vaginal including masturbation simulate the feeling of a vagina. Oral sex is pleasing also because it makes the man feel like a king.

Your brain will make it seem like you are fucking without the intent of making kids but your body always has the intent. Brains trick people. A woman's body always wants to get pregnant, even if she never wants to get pregnant.

If an attempt to deny life, it is doomed from the beginning since not even suicide is a denial of life.

People fuck because it is pleasurable, either physically or emotionally(having children) Pleasure = life, pain = death, life = good, death = bad. It's hardwired into our brains to associate our offspring with our own lives because we are our genes.

Exactly...i'd rather deal with the fact that i'm mortal to the best of my ability, instead of bringing a human into the world who has no say in my decision. "Sorry little homie! you were part of my selfish plan for myself. My DNA made me do this"

Sexual attraction is controlled by variables like fertility, disease fighting abilities, the strength of a face (fibonacci sequence, balance, symmetry), oxygen levels of locations, pheremones (believe it or not wearing deodorant, being on the pill changes the sexual chemistry between people)There is no difference between fucking a woman at the club and fucking your wife, and fucking for the sake of fucking and fucking to make a baby. Your dubious brain might rationalize it somehow, but your body has its own plan. I am not a virgin, but my theory is that people do it because it makes them feel immortal. This is the closest known thing we have to immortality.. the passing on of seeds.

Ska-punkwas never any good. The ska/reggae from the 60s and 70s is a lot better. It's pretty much raw soul-music that turns away from modern society (babylon). It's still more pop than metal though. Two basic recommendations would be:

Well there's different kinds of madness but all have ties to death. "Normal" people don't think about death. They pay attention to mundane distractions. Mad people have a deja-vu of death, combined with the stress of knowing that in this state they are completely socially incompatible, unless maybe they build a complex relationship with art and commodify it somehow.Plenty of philosophers like Nietzche and some others were considered mad.